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Interviewing young children with props: prior experience matters
Author(s) -
Nigro Georgia N.,
Wolpow Sarah I.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1004
Subject(s) - interview , psychology , recall , event (particle physics) , cognitive interview , developmental psychology , social psychology , cognition , cognitive psychology , psychiatry , physics , quantum mechanics , political science , law
This study investigated the effects of prior experience with props used during an interview on young children's recall of an event. In a one‐way design, we interviewed 4‐year‐old children 1 to 2 days after they participated in a staged event. One group of children played with toy replicas of items from the event prior to an interview with the toy props. Another group matched toy replicas to real items from the event prior to an interview with the toy props. A third group coloured before an interview with the toy props, and a fourth coloured before an interview with the real items. Finally, a fifth group coloured before an interview with no props, only verbal cues about the items that had been present. Results indicated that the condition in which children played with toy props prior to the interview had the lowest verbal accuracy during the interview. Children who saw toys for the first time during the interview behaviourally enacted the highest volume of correct information about the event. Implications for interviewing children are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.